My knowledge isn't bad at present and have the capacity to learn quickly for the stuff I don't know.

The area I'm operating in is 31% of the countries GDP yet only 1.5% of the land area, so its very concentrated with only 5 Data Recovery companies in the area. Also non are within a 30 km radius of myself and planned offices.

So.. the question is although I'm expecting this to take time and have a suitable plan for passing on mech/cleanroom work for the present, my question is, does Data Recovery pay well over time, over say network engineering ?

I ask this because it really is a career decision and I'd rather get input from those who've gone down this road.

I personally think it's too late to get in the game, by about 5 years+.

I see guys who start DR businesses thinking that there is easy money to be made. Unless you are in it full time and have been for many years, I think it's not worth starting. Remember that you need a lot of knowledge and expertise when you are working on a customers drive. It's not a game and you can't experiment with other peoples data. I'm in no way suggesting that you will but you have to be aware of the commercial realities of DR.

5 companies is quite a bit of competition IMO so unless you have a unique selling point or particular area of expertise, SSD or RAID for example, then you are running up a hill.

The world really doesn't need another data recovery wanna start-up. Of the 5 competition DR's, maybe 2 are good, of the 2, ones in a different city. 3 seem to be wannabe's. I intend one way or another to be the best, and set the standards to the highest level possible. This is Africa, standards aren't exactly the best generally. I prefer to apply first world business rules, and so far people appreciate it.

I've already started signing up local VAR's with 20% rebate. Same goes for company IT Depts. Reality is I'm in the middle of many industrial areas with little to no local access to a data recovery unit.

(This is what allows my telecoms wisp business to thrive, no other real options. even from the massive telco's. In all fairness each of my clients gets a good deal with no funny invoices ever. Trust me, a business's phones and internet are very critical. Every call is a transaction and it had better work and work well.)

I'd never ever ever mess around with clients data. I've been dealing with critical data one way or another since I started working, and know how important it is.

Also, a bit of uphill is to be expected as I'd effectively be taking a bit out of the other guys market share (in theory, highly dependent on my approach to the market)

But back to money, does DR make money given that its done right, and the best procedures and practices are followed, or does it simply pay the bills. I really don't want to jump in and be yet another DR business that closes.

If you're expecting to get rich, then it's definitely too late to get into data recovery. The early starters made most of the $$$ when it was still new, but now competition is getting tough. Even if you are the only local professional data recovery offering (like I am) you still face tough competition from the bigger companies.

I got in not that many years ago, and am now finally starting to make decent money. It's a major investment of time, energy, and cold hard cash to get a DR company off the ground. I don't think that today I'd be looking to get into this if I wasn't already in it. With the rise of SSD's many of us are already starting to wonder what the future will bring.

I'd guess that if you get started now, you'll only be getting the hang of it and starting to be successful around the time that the traditional hard drives start to decline. Just my thoughts.

Unless you have extensive experience in DR from current or previous employment. In this case I suppose the knowledge and skillset is there to startup, but its still a difficult market to crack with a lot of competition.

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